Six days until my unemployment hearing. I'm not sleeping again and when I do sleep, I wake up several times during the night in a cold sweat, panicking. The stress from the past few months is taking a toll -- my hair has begun to fall out and I'm not even on chemo this time.
My job hunt has hit a dead end. I've started applying for listings that I feel I'm underqualified for -- the logic being that since potential employers don't want to hire me because they think I'm overqualified, then maybe I can snatch a position from a higher executive because they think HE (or she) is overqualified. I would definitely need a better wardrobe, though.
Ok. It's just an excuse to go shopping.
I have also started looking at job listings that are not in the film industry. I truly cannot imagine myself doing anything else at this point in my life, but if I lose my unemployment benefits, I may get desperate enough to seek out whatever I can get. After spending the last fifteen years on movie and television stages, the thought of going into another field scares the heck out of me. And truth to tell, I simply don't have an interest in banking or the hotel business. I've worked so hard to gain experience and knowledge in the entertainment field -- it would frankly break my spirit if I had to walk away and do something else. I suppose I could tend bar while I look for a film industry position. I've tended bar before. But I'm afraid that I would end up out of the loop and become bitter and that could cut into my tips.
Also today I went through a comprehensive list of all the commercial production companies I could find. Out of the 187 companies in the LA area, I found about 30 of them with which I have personally done business. I sent a little note with a copy of my resume to each of them, saying that I was available and was seeking a staff position as a Production Coordinator or Producer. It was terribly time consuming, but I figured it couldn't hurt and it might at least open up a dialogue with these people. If anything, they might contact me out of curiosity to ask me what happened. Even if I get some freelance work, it will get me back into the regular swing of things and hopefully lead to something more permanent.
I will try doing this with TV and motion picture production companies next, although getting contact information is more difficult than with commercial companies. This is largely due to the fact that many companies are created specifically for a single film or TV show, so there are literally thousands of them. The hard part is trying to figure out with which major studio or larger production company they are affiliated, if any. Many of them were created by TV and film actors, and so trying to find a fax number or email address is pretty tricky. Sometimes they refer you to the actor's agent or manager, who is trained to weed out any unsolicited materials, therefore rendering all of your homework useless, as your letter and resume end up tossed.
The best way to deal with this situation, I've found, is to simply go for a mass market inundation of my materials, and hope that one or two resumes might make it in. I have heard that sometimes they will call you simply because they have seen your name so many times, they think you're "somebody".
It's ridiculous that I have to jump through so many hoops just to get a job.
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